**spoiler alert** Dunnett remains the only author I've read in the last ten years whose books make me repeatedly exclaim, laugh and gasp aloud. I foun**spoiler alert** Dunnett remains the only author I've read in the last ten years whose books make me repeatedly exclaim, laugh and gasp aloud. I found this the least gripping of the Lymond chronicles so far, and it's taken me 6 weeks to read it--too much exposition of the "they went here, they went there, this and this and this happened" type, but it still had wonderful jaw-dropping moments. Like when Gabriel's shirt gets ripped off and we discover that HE TOO is scarred with HIS SISTER'S MARK (BLEH!! BLEH!! BLEH!!) or the heart-stopping paragraph when he describes in shiveringly graphic detail what his plans are for Lymond's son (BLEH!!!!).

I like it that mousy 13-year-old Philippa is turning into a hero. Most of the female roles have either been good-sexy or bad-sexy, or beautiful and patient. And very grown-up, apart from the lovely, brief portraits of small, sweaty, red-cheeked and red-haired Mary Queen of Scots....more

Not Westall's best in terms of plot or organization, but he's still a wonderful writer. The prose just flows so easily and the sense of place makes upNot Westall's best in terms of plot or organization, but he's still a wonderful writer. The prose just flows so easily and the sense of place makes up for a bunch of cliched twists including the fact that the grownups have to come to the rescue at the end....more

I did enjoy it, but I felt like the second half read like the author was writing to a specified word count each day... as indeed she more or less admiI did enjoy it, but I felt like the second half read like the author was writing to a specified word count each day... as indeed she more or less admits in her author's note. Characters were dealt with VERY summarily as she tied up her 16 (or whatever it was) out-of-control plot threads.

I love, love, love the "punchline." This book has got a surprisingly, defiantly happy ending, and I really like it.

note: I could have used a small glossary of Polish phrases to make the most of this book. I don't actually understand why there isn't one. Did they move it to make room for the spurious author interview tacked on at the end of this particular edition?...more

A sad and noble effort to bring the events of the genocide in Rwanda to a Western reading public; the dedication moved me almost to tears when I lookeA sad and noble effort to bring the events of the genocide in Rwanda to a Western reading public; the dedication moved me almost to tears when I looked at it again after finishing the book. And yet for about three quarters of the novel it pretty much left me cold. The characterization was just not convincing or deep enough; the omniscient narrative voice was distanced and stiff, though this may have been a translation problem (it was written in French originally); there didn't seem to be any motivation for ANYONE, good, bad, young, old, male, female, sympathetic or otherwise, other than sex, which got boring after a while; and the overlying plot was so reminiscent of Thomas Keneally's "Towards Asmara" (developing African nation at war, sympathetic white journalist falls for local girl who ends up dehumanized, lots of people get killed in horrible ways). But. But. Towards the end, when the REAL horror got going (and there had been horrible things going on all along), it became quite gripping. I liked it better, having finished it, than I did most of the time I was reading it.

And of course I knew next to nothing about Rwanda before I started, which is a good reason for having read it... but I wish I felt, afterward, that I knew a bit more about Rwanda for having read it. I will remember the horrible imagery, since that was what was described so vividly, more than I will remember the somewhat generic character representations of the tragic victims Courtemanche longs to immortalize....more

**spoiler alert** WAAHHH! Definitely the most readable of the Dunnett books so far, but what an emotional roller-coaster. I got kind of fed up at the**spoiler alert** WAAHHH! Definitely the most readable of the Dunnett books so far, but what an emotional roller-coaster. I got kind of fed up at the end of Lymond's complete lack of resource against his enemy... It just all seemed so damn pointless and unfair. And actually, having finished it, I'm still not sure what the *point* of the whole search was, apart from turning Our Hero into an emotional and physical cripple. OK, so he gets to kill Gabriel, but even the Mean Old Omniscient Narrator says that the killing meant nothing, given the state of mental collapse that Lymond's in by the time he gets to do it.

Philippa is wonderful. I love the way she gets to mature, and blossom, and manages to be heroic while maintaining her own femininity and character (and, despite the seraglio and the marriage, even her virginity!!!). It just about kills me who she ends up married to. I kind of toyed with the idea myself while reading, but never imagined Dunnett would entertain it as well--nay, even EFFECT it by the end of the book.

I have to say, people accuse me of needlessly tormenting my own fictional characters, but at least I don't go around cutting babies' throats. And I do try to land my favorites in situations they have a chance of recovering from eventually.

Marthe... hermaphrodite or woman??? Lymond... Did he sleep with Dragut or not? Khaireddin... How far does he take his clients? Oonagh... murder or suicide? Man, I don't know why I keep reading this stuff, it's so ultimately UNFULFILLING. A bit like being an opium addict, I suppose....more

the byline for these editions are "the page becomes the stage." King Lear has never been numbered among my favorites; I can never remember the plot; bthe byline for these editions are "the page becomes the stage." King Lear has never been numbered among my favorites; I can never remember the plot; but how tremendously these quirky, disturbing illustrations guided me through the text this time. All the references to sight and blindness, nature and kingship, kept leaping out with great clarity. I also found David Gibson's brief introduction to the play to be very useful and enlightening. I'm really burning to see this as an actual production now.

incidentally OH my goodness how I HATED Regan. I know, Goneril is just as bad, but I really hated Regan. ...more

**spoiler alert** I don't know WHAT took me so long to finish this. I enjoyed it in parts. I bogged down quite a bit in the long descriptions of histo**spoiler alert** I don't know WHAT took me so long to finish this. I enjoyed it in parts. I bogged down quite a bit in the long descriptions of history and pomp, and I felt UTTERLY BETRAYED by the drowning of the Chancellor father & elder son, after which I stopped reading for a while... though now I understand that it was inevitable every single sea journey end in shipwreck or freezing to death, so that Lymond's buddies would go to the extremes to which they go, in the end, to stop him returning to Russia. It's very nice that the omniscient narrator assures us that the Russian-bound ship he would have departed on was doomed either way, so we know that their fear was well-founded.

I liked the fight in Guzel's rooftop garden, and the killing of the eagle, and all the play and interplay between Francis and Phillipa... if there had been more of THIS sort of thing, non-stop you know, it wouldn't have taken me OVER A YEAR to read.

But I will soldier on and complete the series! Dunnett writes so beautifully....more

This book was a gift. I *love* the size and shape of it, its compactness, the cloth cover, the way i"Nice piece of oratorical flamboyancy." (--Hester)

This book was a gift. I *love* the size and shape of it, its compactness, the cloth cover, the way it fits so perfectly with its companion book, Lyra's Oxford, which I perversely keep with my guidebooks rather than my other Pullman novels.

I am almost certain I would have liked the actual text better had I not been consumed with jealousy over the presentation. The story is less than 100 small pages long, directed at no obviously definable reader of any age, and is surely nonsensical in places to anyone who doesn't know His Dark Materials. For all the story's artistry it would not be considered publishable if it hadn't been written by, well, Philip Pullman. Yet because it is Pullman's, it is illustrated with beautiful woodcuts and appended with faked photographs of newspaper clippings, letters and an actual board game folded in a paper envelope in the back. I know that this beautiful little book was expensive to put together.

Lucky book. I am jealous.

It is mean and childish of me. And reduces my own pleasure in the reading, which should be great--I adore Pullman and this world of his. In spite of my jealousy, I want about five more of these beautiful little books with their discrete tales from the world of His Dark Materials so I can stack them up with the rest of my guidebooks....more

An unusual DuMaurier in that it's a time-travel novel. I found it quite readable, but I could not make myself pay any attention to the complex relatioAn unusual DuMaurier in that it's a time-travel novel. I found it quite readable, but I could not make myself pay any attention to the complex relationships, housing arrangements and hierarchies of the 13th century characters--very odd, because I got the impression they were supposed to be so much more vivid and intense than the modern day characters. I had not before encountered the idea of time travel as an effect of inherited memory combined with hallucinogenic drugs... I liked the idea, it was believable, and yet something wasn't wholly satisfactory about the book--almost as though she didn't take the premise far enough. and also, perhaps, there were too many loose threads that didn't quite get tied up at the end.

**spoiler alert** What are the chances that the climactic moment of two of our last three book group choices would involve a vengeful elephant dealing**spoiler alert** What are the chances that the climactic moment of two of our last three book group choices would involve a vengeful elephant dealing out violent death to the brutal villain?

I liked this book. The author confesses that his working title was "Jews with Swords," and actually one of the things that I liked about it from the start was that everyone in the book is Jewish... kind of incidentally. But I mean EVERYONE, including the African hero (he's Abyssinian, of course!). It's a 9th century action-adventure set on the shores of the Caspian Sea, so the Jewishness of the entire cast is a little unexpected, but wholly believable. And the characters are lovely. And the action is unrelenting. And the details are unusual and vivid. And it has pictures!

But I wouldn't have said there were any deep and meaningful messages here, apart from the obvious one that, OPEN YOUR EYES oh historical dabblers, medieval Jews were not all grovelling merchants, and had brains and hearts as well as sword arms as good as anyone else's....more

I feel like I ought to write this review en francais, but I'm much better at readinShort stories set in occupied France during the Second World War...

I feel like I ought to write this review en francais, but I'm much better at reading it than writing it. Actually, I find it frustrating reading in French because I cannot quite get the personal involvement and appreciation of language that I do in English. However, there were moments that stood out here, particularly in "La Marche a l'etoile," which maybe was easier to read just because it came at the end of the book... I found it impassioned and moving. It was also remarkable to me to think that these works of literary protest were written and published during WWII, under Nazi rule, at what risk and cost to author and publisher? Silent protest indeed.

loved it. am sold. Bought it at quarter to midnite in the only open newstand in Newark Airport because I was stuck with nothing to read, and am now aloved it. am sold. Bought it at quarter to midnite in the only open newstand in Newark Airport because I was stuck with nothing to read, and am now a convert. A reasoned, intelligent, modest political manifesto, well-grounded in history and sometimes almost painfully apologetic. He sets himself a very high standard....more

In English, The Horse Without a Head is one of my top ten favorite books EVER. Ever. I must have read it about 40 times in English; this is the secondIn English, The Horse Without a Head is one of my top ten favorite books EVER. Ever. I must have read it about 40 times in English; this is the second time I've read it in French. Having read 3 or 4 novels en francais in the past year, I think it's fair to say that the prose here is the most difficult I've come across--full of slang and technical terms (the setting is brutally urban, a busy rail junction and industrial area in post world-war-two Parisian slums), and the plot is so darn full of twists and turns that I STILL can't quite follow it. But the ten kids are WONDERFUL and the details are so incredibly evocative that you just skip over the bits you can't follow. Marion, la fille aux chiens, is my original hero--with her green eyes and man's jacket and sixty slavering dogs who obey her every whim--and the scenes of mayhem in the abandoned costume-and-gag factory are just... indescribable. The villains are evil, the heroes youthful and honorable, brave and destitute, and Gaby's gang even includes a couple of minority kids... this in a book written in 1955.

I first read it at the age of 7 in a Book-of-the-Month club edition published in the US in 1958, translated by John Buchanan-Brown and grittily illustrated by Richard Kennedy. The same translation was published in the UK, but for the US edition they edited out all references to A) the kids smoking (!!!) and B) the grown-ups sharing an occasional glass of wine! Apart from that, the US edition is curiously more elegant and readable than its British counterpart, suggesting a better editor (despite its having been cleaned up for its 1950s American audience). I won't tell you the title of the British version, as it is a MASSIVE SPOILER for the denouement. WHYYYY??? Why would any editor do such a thing?

Long out of print in all three countries, if you can get hold of any edition I highly recommend it. Even if I still don't know what the heck a box of mimosa is. ...more

oh... maybe I'm just a sucker for Saint-Exupéry. Let me go on about the title. It just doesn't translate into English. I LIKE the traditional Englishoh... maybe I'm just a sucker for Saint-Exupéry. Let me go on about the title. It just doesn't translate into English. I LIKE the traditional English title, Wind, Sand, and Stars, but the puns all get lost. They'd get lost no mattr how you translate it, though. In French, la terre is not just the world, the earth, but also earth, dirt, ground and land; there are puns on terrain--terraine, landscape--and territoire, territory--the word atterrir, TO LAND an aeroplane, literally means to alight on earth. So all these things get talked about, man's relationship to earth from above and from ON the earth, but also you get quite a bit of the literal translation "world of men"--a plea for peace and for environmental moderation. (All the early aviators are blown away by the beauty of the earth from the air.)

My favorite part of this book is where he lands on an inaccessible plateau in North Africa and, after marvelling that he is the first living thing EVER to have drawn breath here, notices that the place is littered with meteorites. And what is so wonderful about this book is not that St. X experienced that moment, but that through him, *I* get to experience it too. "Nous demandons à boire, mais nous demandons aussi à communiquer." The pages are filled with the desperation to communicate, man's love of solitude tempered and ruined by his dependence on others. This is the landscape of The Little Prince--all the characters are here, and were real.

Incidentally, I'd forgotten what a huge influence the core story in this book--plane crash in the desert and subsequent brush with nearly dying of thirst--was on my own book, The Sunbird.

This is the first time I've read this book in French. It's not long and it's very accessible to the struggling Francophile....more

This was a book group book. No, the book group did not read it in French, that was just me adding an extra level of challenge, and as a result it wasThis was a book group book. No, the book group did not read it in French, that was just me adding an extra level of challenge, and as a result it was the Only Book I Read This Summer. But, comparing it occasionally with the English translation, I feel it is fair to say it is a much better book in French. The characters are wonderful and quirky, the writing is gritty and lyrical all at once (the rhythm of the converstions appealed to me). The book group pointed out that a lot of the plot was patently unbelievable. I would argue that what is the POINT of fiction if not to stretch your imagination?

It kind of reminded me of a grown-up version of Le Cheval Sans Tete!...more

I really do like Graham Green and need to read more. This, returning to Scottish rain after five weeks of sun and wind "from Cape Cod to the Pacific PI really do like Graham Green and need to read more. This, returning to Scottish rain after five weeks of sun and wind "from Cape Cod to the Pacific Palisades" (LITERALLY, for me, although that is lifted straight from the text of "Cheap in August") is just SO apt, though it was published 40 years ago:

"Suddenly it was autumn when they arrived back in London--if not winter already, for there was ice in the rain falling on the tarmac, and they had quite forgotten how early the lights came on at home--passing Gilette and Lucozade and Smith's Crisps, and no view of the Parthenon anywhere."

The stories were brief and bitter and occasionally very funny. I am going to read some more....more

well, I was surprised to discover that this is a novel. I mean, I'd read a good 20 pages or so before I figured out it had an invented plot and inventwell, I was surprised to discover that this is a novel. I mean, I'd read a good 20 pages or so before I figured out it had an invented plot and invented characters, and the delay in discovery wasn't my fault (I mean, on account of my faulty French)--so much of the opening describes the daily (nightly) routine of the "Southern Mail" of the title that the narrator takes some time to get around to introducing the characters. The sad, sordid relationship in the middle of the book, the "meat" of the novel, is the weakest part--it rings the least true, and you feel that the author is much more at home among the sand and stars of the Sahara than in the salons and parks of Paris.

Still, the writing is dreamy and beautiful, as ever, and the descriptions of piloting small planes back and forth across the Mediterranean in the 1920s makes jaw-dropping good reading....more

**spoiler alert** 1) I love the way Sayers uses short stories in a sort of exploratory self-indulgence. She allows her characters to engage in situati**spoiler alert** 1) I love the way Sayers uses short stories in a sort of exploratory self-indulgence. She allows her characters to engage in situations that are just patently ridiculous, unbelievable, stretched over too long a time, or too slender a premise to warrant a full novel. I like the way she PLAYS in short stories.

2) I have never read any Montague Egg stories before and I'm SO glad the novels are about Peter Wimsey instead. I mean, Monty's heart is in the right place, but he's awfully earnest.

3) What further do we learn about Peter's character here?

"My religious beliefs are a little ill-defined.""I'm a bit of a conjurer myself."

4) Rural garages no longer use "clock-faces with movable hands to show lighting-up time." Wow, it took me a LONG time to work out what this meant, and it was key to the plot, as well. "Lighting-up time" is, of course, half-an-hour after sunset, when you need to LIGHT YOUR HEADLAMPS on your Model T or whatever it is that British people drove in 1925. It was significant that the murder occurred on 18 June--at midsummer--when lighting-up time would have been very late (10.20 p.m., in fact)....more

I do love Posy Simmonds. This isn't exactly a long or difficult read and I've probably read it 20 times. But I really love it for its somewhat painfulI do love Posy Simmonds. This isn't exactly a long or difficult read and I've probably read it 20 times. But I really love it for its somewhat painful, wry portrayal of the late 1970s british middle class. I guess I see myself in Wendy and my father in George.

Just finished the second read of this. Loved it, though it does have its flaws... the breathless attempt at a humorous and happy (?) ending falls a liJust finished the second read of this. Loved it, though it does have its flaws... the breathless attempt at a humorous and happy (?) ending falls a little flat, especially as when taken as a whole the story is not only tragic but also a bitter indictment of both British and French upper middle classes. And yet there isn't a character in it who is not, at some base level, sympathetic. The narrator's lengthy text drags on a bit.

**spoiler alert** I read this for an on-line book group called "Reading Wimsey" over on LiveJournal. I've read a lot of rubbish this summer, and it wa**spoiler alert** I read this for an on-line book group called "Reading Wimsey" over on LiveJournal. I've read a lot of rubbish this summer, and it was such a blissful relief to sink back into Sayers's easy, elegant prose. Sayers's short stories are very different from her novels--she really seizes the opportunity to explore different points-of-view, outrageously improbable situational constructions, her various personal fascinations (wine, printed ephemera, crosswords, etc.). (I bought my copy of this book in 1987 and I appear to have managed to struggle successfully through one entire corner of the crossword. My own marginal annotation of several years later says, "How the bloody hell did I even get this far." ALTHOUGH, I am now able to supply the word "QUAGGA" to Bunter's final query, as my children and I are very familiar with a stuffed example of said animal in the Royal Museum in Edinburgh.)

There are certain tiny details that I just adore about Sayers's writing. The way the "little pool of crimson fire like a miniature sunset," mentioned so casually in a short story in 1928, turns up again nearly ten years later on Harriet Vane's finger in Busman's Honeymoon. The way Peter is convinced that the Death Coach can't be real because his horse doesn't shy at it but she DOES shy at Dead Man's Post... it's a given that the supernatural does exist, it just doesn't exist in relation to Burdock. (And what a looooong and rambling story that is. There's a MAP. There's the implication that Peter is in the country as a convalscent. I think she's so good at background!) My favorite story is the last in this collection, "Talboys," which I appreciate so much more now that I have children and houseguests and a career than I did as a happy-go-lucky 22-year-old grad student:

"You may, by taking your husband into your own room and accommodating the two elder boys in his dressing-room, squeeze in an extra person who, like Miss Quirk, has been wished upon you; but it is scarcely possible to run after her all day to see that she is not getting into mischief. This is more particularly the case if you are a novelist by profession, and if, moreover, your idea of a hppy holiday is to dispose as completely and briskly as possible of children, book, servants, and visitor, so as to snatch all the available moments for playing the fool with a congenial, but admittedly distracting, husband."

I also find that I am mind-melding Harriet Vane with Anne Morrow Lindbergh in this story, which amuses me, since AML has replaced HV as my role model over the last ten years (most of my role models have been fictional)....more

**spoiler alert** Unbelievably, I hadn't read this before. I found it a bit disjointed in places—she’s not always sure whether she’s trying to be comi**spoiler alert** Unbelievably, I hadn't read this before. I found it a bit disjointed in places—she’s not always sure whether she’s trying to be comic, or making social commentary, or enjoying the characters, or creating a mystery that the reader can solve. And some of it is less than believable, like Robert’s moving the corpse all about, and creating all that fuss over the fictional Oliver to the point of attacking someone. But I really enjoyed the growing relationship between Wimsey and Parker, and the tension the case created between them, the class wrangling that they find themselves forced into by others, and the way that tension disappears when Wimsey hangs out with Marjorie Phelps and her crowd—a crowd he appears to feel comfortable with. Or is it just with her? And while we’re on the subject, MARJORIE PHELPS!!! Why did I not know about Marjorie Phelps? Peter obviously goes for the artistic types.

I thought that Penberthy’s forced suicide at the end was both disturbing and alarming. I suppose he did know he would be scandalized and hung if he didn’t take his own way out, and of course every single Bellona Club member had been an officer in the Great War and its sensibilities and damage still hung over them all (and indeed, casts a pall throughout the entire book). I was astonished to discover that I had correctly identified the item missing from General Fentiman’s belongings on the day of his death. I thought of it immediately—an Armistice poppy—but dismissed it as somehow too modern and obvious.

This bit at the end, in Paul Delagardie's bio of Lord Peter, makes me want to write a kid!wimsey fanfic:

"...he developed what I can best call a kind of bodily cleverness, more skill than strength. He had a quick eye for a ball and beautiful hands for a horse. He had the devil's own pluck, too: the intelligent sort of pluck that sees the risk before he takes it. He suffered badly from nightmares as a child."

**spoiler alert** I didn't realize, before I started, that this is not a Peter Wimsey mystery. Actually, I really enjoyed it, after I'd figured out th**spoiler alert** I didn't realize, before I started, that this is not a Peter Wimsey mystery. Actually, I really enjoyed it, after I'd figured out the difference. It's a collaboration between Sayers and one Robert Eustace—does anybody know anything about the nature of the collaboration? I found the intelligent, talented, but above all middle class (for want of a better term) characters quite refreshing and engaging, even the whacko ones. I also found the conceit of the novel's construction, as a collection of documents, kind of compelling—while it was impossible to read without bias, you did feel that you were a participant in a way that conventional first or third person narration doesn't allow.

I kept worrying that there would be a horrible twist turning my favorite character into the villain and was quite relieved when he got to the end with a clean conscience (apart from what he perceives to be treachery in narcing on his obnoxious friend). Wish I'd seen more of Elizabeth, too, as I quite liked her.

On a not-entirely-relevant note, I loved the conversation between the scientists and the creationists near the end, where the tangential Hoskyns manages an elegant balance of both:

"…all you people talk so cheerfully about Matter, as if you know what it was. I don't, and it's more or less my job to know. Go back again, go past your colloids and your sea-water. Go back to the dust of the earth and the mass of rotating cinders which was before the ocean even began. Go back to the sun… Go back to the nebula. Go back to the atom. Do some of the famous splitting we hear so much about. Where is your Matter? It isn't. It is a series of pushes or pulls or vortices in nothingness… Even your heredity-business is fortuitous. Why one set of chromosomes more than any other? Your chain of causation would only be a real one if all possible combinations and permutations were worked out in practice. Something is going on, that is as certain as anything can be—that is, I mean, it is the fundamental assumption we are bound to make in order to reason at all—but how it started or why it started is just as mysterious as it was when the first thoughtful savage invented a god to explain it." (pp 207-208)

I never know how seriously to take her science (is all that "optically active/inactive" stuff true?), and this was originally published in 1930, but I believe Hoskyns.

--------------------------

OK… I just looked this up on Wikipedia here and my questions are answered very briefly; "Robert Eustace" is Eustace Barton, who suggested Sayers use the polariscope to differentiate between organic and inorganic matter. The article says that "As a practising Christian, she was pleased with the religious-scientific theme offered to her by "Robert Eustace", which was based on the idea that the asymmetry of living molecules was an indication of the hand of God in creation.

"[The idea] touches the very key note of the mystery of the appearance of Life on this planet. There seems no escape from the conclusion that at some wonderful moment in the evolutionary process a Directive Force-From-Without entered upon the scene of Life itself." — Dorothy L Sayers, Dorothy L Sayers: Her Life and Soul. Barbara Reynolds, Hodder & Stoughton 1993 , chapter 15 But also, the author of the article that Sayers wanted to make a much bigger impact with these very themes that struck a chord with me in the novel, and felt that she had failed to do so....more